Shadowing Practice: Stop Avoiding Discomfort If You Want Real Happiness - Learn English Speaking with Video
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happiness has tons of unhappiness in it to be happy is to be fully alive
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that's what it comes down to is to be is to
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have a is to enjoy your life not pleasure enjoyment
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which has people and meaning and it manages your pleasures
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which means foregoing a lot of your pleasures
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it means a self a self -managing individual is one who has true enjoyment not just pleasure it means satisfaction
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which is the joy of accomplishments with struggle
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that's what you're talking about without the struggle there's no sweetness
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there's no satisfaction it's just accomplishments like being born with daddy's money
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there's no satisfaction from being born rich the satisfaction comes from the struggle
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that it comes to get rich and then the rich part is almost beside the point
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and last but not least is the meaning
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and i could ask you about the moments of greatest meaning in your life where you find your resilience
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and your will to live and you're gonna tell me something something painful about your mother almost dying or,
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you know, a true loss that you've had in your life.
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You're not going to talk about that week at the beach at Editha.
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That's not what you're going to tell me about.
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You're going to tell me about hard things.
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The truth of the matter is that if you try to avoid suffering in any way, you will avoid your happiness.
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That's the truth of the matter.
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And so Alex Hormozzi says that happiness is a scam.
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That's because he thinks of happiness as a, Alex Hormozzi's great, but doesn't mean he's a happiness scientist
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and he things of happiness as a feeling feelings are just evidence of happiness don't chase a feeling
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that's insane that's like the smell of my turkey is my
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thanksgiving dinner no the smell of the turkey is evidence of your thanksgiving dinner look for the protein carbohydrates
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and fat and strive to get the macronutrients and balance
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and abundance with a delicious recipe then you'll actually be then you'll have a nutritious meal
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that will build your body and give you what you actually need
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and that you'll actually enjoy and find satisfying
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and even meaningful assuming you get your thanksgiving dinner with the people
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that you love that's really what it comes down to there's nothing at odds with these ideas of pain
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and suffering and the best possible life that's full of happiness
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and that's what we need to understand
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and that's one of the things by the way
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that your generation's been lied to that that if you're sad
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and anxious there's something wrong with you
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and you got to fix it no are you kidding me i mean this is life if you're not sad and anxious.
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You need therapy, man.
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Something's wrong.
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Now it can be maladapted.
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You know, clinical depression, generalized anxiety are real diagnosable disorders, and everybody should take their meds if they're taking meds, right?
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But the truth of the matter is I want it all, man.
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Bring it on.
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I want the pain.
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I want the trouble.
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I want the challenge.
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I want the tragedy.
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I want the grief i want all of it
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because i want to be happy i think the key thing there is
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that oftentimes depression
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which i would say is more of a metaphor for being in a depressed state yeah
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it's actually just a normal reaction to an abnormal set of circumstances
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that are incongruent with or a normal set of circumstances normal i mean the truth is
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that it's very normal for you to have adversity and setbacks
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and if you didn't have them you wouldn't learn and grow
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but you have natural emotions
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which are the proper functioning in the limbic system of your brain saying
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that these are things that are a threat and
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that you should work to avoid or manage that's normal fear anger disgust
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and sadness are the four negative emotions and
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and you literally have different parts of your limbic system
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that were developed to process each one of these emotions
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and they've evolved and persisted
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because these are are good for you not bad for you you're supposed to feel sadness
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when you lose someone or something that you love.
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And the reason that sadness is incredibly uncomfortable is because you need to have an incentive to avoid these losses.
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But when these losses are inevitable, you understand your life better when you process that emotion.
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That's the paradox of being fully alive.
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There's a great early Christian saint named Saint Irenaeus in the second century.
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And his greatest quote is
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that the glory of God is a person fully alive the glory of god
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so in other words to be in god's image is to be fully alive
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guess what that means lots of misery that means trouble is what
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that actually means
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and that's an important understanding of life right
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i don't want to walk around with a smiley face all the time
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i want the full experience i want to bring
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it on man the full monty every single day that's what i want
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Stop Avoiding Discomfort If You Want Real Happiness”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: happiness, normal, satisfaction, emotion, pleasure. This video has 78 sentences and 867 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:30. The speaker talks fast, about 193 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| satisfaction noun | /sætɪsˈfækʃən/ | A fulfilment of a need or desire. |
| thanksgiving noun | /ˌθæŋksˈɡɪv.ɪŋ/ | The expression of gratitude. |
| sadness noun | /ˈsædnəs/ | The state or emotion of being sad. |
| suffer verb | /ˈsʌfɚ/ | To undergo hardship. |
| saint noun | /seɪnt/ | A deceased person whom a church or another religious group has officially recognised as especially holy or godly; one eminent for piety and virtue. |
| glory noun | /ˈɡlɔːɹi/ | Great beauty and splendor. |
| anxious adjective | /ˈæŋkʃəs/ | Nervous and worried. |
| med noun | /mɛːd/ | Medications, especially prescribed psychoactive medications. |
| enjoyment noun | /ɪnˈd͡ʒɔɪ.mənt/ | The condition of enjoying anything. |
| accomplishment noun | /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/ | The act of accomplishing; completion; fulfilment. |
| circumstance noun | /ˈsɝ.kəmˌstæns/ | Something which is related to, or in some way affects, a fact or event. |
| meal noun | /ˈmiːl/ | Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity. |
| anxiety noun | /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/ | An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come down to verb | To reach by moving down or reducing. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being born · been lied · can be maladapted |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've had · generation's been lied · they've evolved |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 20 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, you'll, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, anxious /ˈæŋkʃəs/, accomplishment /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/
- Long words — get the stress right: satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, accomplishment /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/, anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like happiness, emotion, satisfaction.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.